1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the display of text in a virtual graphical environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for automated context-compensated rendering of text in a virtual graphical environment. This is particularly useful for text compatible with virtual 3D displays, and with a disparate range of displays.
2. Related Art
Modern computer display technology increasingly provides support for rendering objects in virtual graphical environments, particularly virtual three-dimensional (3D) graphical environments, such as isometric images. These incorporate many more dynamic graphical effects than traditional two-dimensional graphical environments. However, these effects can have a negative impact on the clear display of text. Existing systems that support virtual graphical environments typically render text using static font images with one or more parameters that do not change according to the graphical environment. For example, two-dimensional fonts are typically based on a fixed map and one or more parameters, such as point-size, style, and color. These do not depend on the graphical environment in which the character will be displayed. Therefore the rendered text often may have poor visibility in the graphical environment.
In the prior art, a skillful artist can manually create an illustration, including 3D-like isometric objects, text and lighting effects. A skillful artist may modify the appearance of the text to provide appropriate readability and graphical compatibility with the remainder of the illustration. However, the success of such changes depends upon the skill of the artist. In partly-automated illustrations, such modifications are not automatically provided, and may or may not be achieved by manual human intervention.
During the European Renaissance, talented artists and scientists created “perspective rules” describing how the painting of an object should vary with its apparent location (especially depth) in the graphical environment (such as a landscape). While such rules can be used to display computer-generated images, these rules do not provide for a clear display of text.
In highly-automated illustration techniques, the appearance of text often suffers from poor readability against the graphical context. A common example of this problem is a movie with subtitles. Typically the subtitles are rendered with a fixed graphical style, and these are superimposed on scenes with various graphical properties, such as brightness and color. In some scenes, the subtitles are clearly readable, but in others the subtitles are difficult to read.
Another problem is type-font poor compatibility across disparate displays. Some type-fonts are optimal for low-resolution monochrome (black and white) displays, and others are optimal for high-resolution polychrome (color) displays. A single type-font is typically not optimal across disparate displays, which presents problems for an image on a centralized server computer that is downloaded to disparate client computers and viewed on disparate displays. As a result, customizing an image on a server for a specific client involves notifying the server of client display parameters and the server creating a customized image that is then downloaded and displayed on the client. This approach can significantly increase server load.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus for rendering text more clearly in a graphical environment, without the limitations of existing systems.